RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—The pope received the American pilgrims May 24. —There are 17,000 hymns known to exist in the English language. —There are 1,050 charitable institutions in London, with an income of over $20,500,000. —There is a Young Men's Christian Association at Yokohama, Japan, with 43 members. —An Exchange says that “Spiritualism in the United States has sent 16,000 persons to the Insane Asylum.” —There were 5,661 Bibles and Testaments distributed by the New York Bible Society, during the month of April. —The National Baptist Sunday-School Convention recently met in Boston. Delegates from all parts of the country were present. —Mr. Moody preached 100 times, and Mr. Sankey sang 300 times in Boston, during their recent series of meetings, which continued thirteen weeks and one day. —An Eastern paper says that five hundred Mormons are about to leave St. George, Utah, for Sonora, Mexico, where they have been promised perfect religious toleration and large grants of land. —Father Bollig, a Jesuit who is said to be able to speak fifty-five languages, has been appointed by Pope Pius IX., keeper of the Vatican Library, in place of the late Cardinal Mezzofanti. Bollig is the first Jesuit who ever filled the place. —In the year 1847, when “ragged schools,” as they were called, were first started in Edinburgh, five per cent of the jail prisoners were children under fourteen years of age, or 315 out of 5,734. Three years later there were only 56 out of 5,869, or less than one per cent. —Protestant Christianity is making rapid progress in Mexico. There are at the present time 125 Protestant congregations, 11 churches, and 99 halls of worship. There are free day schools and 28 evening schools, 50 orphanages and 2 theological seminaries. Six presses are employed in the publication of religious matter. —There are twenty-five Bible societies in Germany. The most important one of them is the Prussian in Berlin. It has 162 auxiliary societies that support it. It was founded in 1814, and has distributed more than 4,000,000 copies of the Bible. Besides these the British Bible society is operating in Germany, and has depositories in Frankfort and Berlin. —Rev. Dr. Robert Cotton Mather, for forty years a missionary of the London Missionary Society in Northern India, for upwards of twenty years editor of the Monthly Journal in Hindoostanee, translator of the commentary of the Annotated New Testament, has recently died. At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a commentary in Hindoostanee on the Old Testament. He was one of that school of Indian missionaries who have been deservedly distinguished for their learning, their ability and their extraordinary enthusiasm and zeal. —The Salt Lake Tribune's San Pete correspondent says that a reliable business man of that county writes as follows: The Mormons in this county are not only drilling, but all the white settlers have been ordered out of Thistle valley to make room for the Indians. There are now between five and six hundred of them here, and more are arriving almost daily. Nearly all are well armed. When Brigham Young passed through San Pete a month ago he said he wanted all the Mormons in Thistle valley to move out to make room for the Indians, as he expected to gather 10,000 of them there to do the will of the Lord. It is openly preached here that the Indians will, before the summer is gone, rid the country of every Gentile and apostate. Great excitement prevails among the outsiders, and if something is not done by the authorities soon they may have another Mountain Meadows butchery. Governor Emery has had his attention called to the fact, and is making preparations to move in the premises.